Calm Down Cardinal Nation
As most of us woke up this beautiful morning we all turned to our Twitter feeds to see that the Cardinals acquired Brandon Moss of the Indians…and Cardinal Nation freaked out! But I am here to tell you to do the exact opposite and why we, Cardinal Nation, need to calm down.
Brandon Moss, in his nine-year career, is a .243 hitter who found his place in this league in 2012 when he finally found a home with Oakland. In the past three-plus seasons he has hit 91 homers for the A’s and Indians, so he has power. Yes, his average is not stellar, we get that, but Cardinal Nation, who were you expecting the Cardinals to trade for to replace Matt Holliday and Mark Reynolds?
How does he help replace both of those players? Moss can play first base and the outfield, which means you can play him in left field to replace Holliday.
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As for Reynolds, he was brought in here to be a power hitter off the bench who spelled Matt Adams and Matt Carpenter when needed. With him now being an everyday player, the bench going into last night looked like this… Dan Johnson, Stephen Piscotty, Pete Kozma, Peter Bourjos, and Tony Cruz. So after this trade you add what was lost with Reynolds no longer being a bench player. Finally, let’s look at these trades Cardinal Nation.
In the Steve Cishek trade you gave up…. go on, Google it since most of us forgot who was traded for a Cishek, who has had multiple 30+ save seasons (the answer was Kyle Barraclough, a AA reliever).
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For Brandon Moss, you gave up Rob Kaminsky, a young pitcher who when you really look at it, is completely expendable. Why? Kaminsky is at Single-A and is expected to be MLB ready by about 2018. Ahead of him currently are Alex Reyes, Marco Gonzales, Jack Flaherty, Tim Cooney, and Luke Weaver in terms of estimated arrival time.
Simply put, the Cardinals shipped two non-MLB ready pitchers in exchange for a closer/setup man, and a player who replaces Holliday’s fielding position, and allows Mark Reynolds to be a power bat on the bench again. It even allows Stephen Piscotty to go back to his natural position of corner outfield. So with all that being said, CALM DOWN CARDINAL NATION!
Feel free to express your opinions on twitter @scottcriscione or comment below.